


Alex Narration.mp3

by barefootwithneonhands



Category: Tanis (Podcast), The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Crack, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Flash Fic, Fluff, Gen, Meta, Oh God I Don't Know The Whole Freaking Kitchen Sink, One Shot, spoilers through 02x03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-22 22:48:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6096436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barefootwithneonhands/pseuds/barefootwithneonhands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nic is struggling to learn MK’s Rules for Life:<br/>1) Do not fuck with the fangirls.<br/>2) Your best friend’s love life does not require an intervention.<br/>3) Your computer will never be safe from your friendly internet sherpa, but try and have some dignity</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alex Narration.mp3

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time the PNWS staff decided to [troll their fandom](http://barefootwithneonhands.tumblr.com/post/139818589264/strixa-eleanor-3-the-wonderful-jinx). This is the inevitable result.  
>    
> Also: just like your favorite breakfast cereal, this is a fic with a special prize inside! See the end notes for redemption details.

Nic hadn't smoked a cigarette in six years and he desperately wanted one now. But the last time Alex had noticed a pack in his bag she'd plastered his office with news articles about lung cancer, throat cancer, and not being able to run away from angry exes. She'd sat him down over coffee with worry in her eyes and told him she was terrified he'd never realize his dream of hosting his own radio show. It was her eyes that haunted him every time he fingered the lighter in his front pocket and helped him through the twitchiest three months of his life.

Now it was time to return the favor.

He'd watched the way her eyes had turned to Strand. The way they followed him when he stormed away. The way they used to light up when he called, and had filled with tears each time Strand accused her of betrayal. Strand was more toxic than cigarettes and his best friend had fallen head first into a terrifying habit.

His eyes flicked to the locked door of his office. It was past midnight and the rest the PNWS staff had finally straggled home. The building was dark and empty, but a guy could never be too careful. 

Nic opened Google and then stopped. His fingers hovered over the keys and he swallowed hard. Alex hadn't listened to reason. She hadn't heard him when he'd warned her that she was on the fast, slippery road to crashing her career. So maybe it was time for a few internet printouts of his own.

The interns had been giggling in the break room this morning as they brewed the worst coffee in the history of mankind. He'd stopped near the door when he caught the words "Alex and Strand", "fandom", and "fanfiction". His mouth had gone dry with horror. Other people had noticed Alex's infatuation? 

Paul strolled by and Nic waved to him wildly. His executive producer looked at him like he'd lost his mind. Nic grabbed Paul by the front of his grey cable knit sweater and pulled him close. "There's a fandom," he hissed. 

Paul stared at him. "Are you high?"

Nic rolled his eyes. "Not today. But Paul," he jerked his head toward the kitchen, "they know. The interns know." He shook Paul gently. "The  _internet_ knows."

Paul delicately unwrapped Nic's fingers from his sweater one by one. "Nic," he said with careful kindness, "we're a podcast network. If the internet didn't know about us we'd be dead in the water."

Nic let his head thunk against Paul's chest and moaned quietly so as not to alert the interns. "They know about Alex and Strand."

Paul went still. "They know _what_  about Alex and Strand? For the love of god and the code of journalistic ethics please tell me there  _is_ nothing to know about Alex and Strand."

"Well not yet!"

His boss, his friend, his rock, laughed and gingerly maneuvered Nic away from him. "Or not ever. It's Alex. She's a pro. You're just paranoid, Nic. You're always paranoid about Alex. And when you've been..." Paul sucked on an imaginary joint and waggled his eyebrows.

Nic scowled. "Fine. Okay. I'll handle it." He turned and stomped down the hall and into his office.

Fourteen hours later he was still holed up in his _sanctum sanctorum_. He’d done all the work he could possibly do, sifting through leads from MK about Tanis and reviewing Alex’s interview with Wendy Hochman. That interview had him concerned. Alex was clearly starting to push the limits, trying to shape the narrative, reaching for something that wasn’t there. Just like what she was doing with Strand. It was time to step in.

He narrowed his eyes and began humming the “Mission Impossible” theme as he typed “Alex Reagan+Richard Strand+Fanfiction” into the search bar. He clicked on the first result and dove head first down the rabbit hole.

* * *

 

Nic had meant to grab Alex for their recording session-slash-intervention bright and early the next day. But between Strand storming the PNWS studios while raving about evil lawyers and Alex disappearing to corner Wendy Hochman’s housekeeper, he’d been totally blocked.

 And when he’d finally gotten a chance to review Alex’s recordings from the events of the day? His concern deepened. Alex had ten solid minutes of Strand ranting about The Advocate and commandeering their interns to dig up potentially illegal information about Middle Eastern construction projects. And she’d absolutely tried to trap Maddie Franks into a firm answer about the creepy noises on Robbie Hochman’s baby monitor.

Sure, Alex hadn’t been sleeping much. Sure, she’d been under a lot of stress. And sure, he thought guiltily, he hadn’t really been there as much as he should have been over the last couple of months. But it was time for all of that to change. His friend was in trouble and he was going to be there for her.

He closed out all the audio files and slapped the fanfiction archive and his favorite word processor onto his desktop. He pursed his lips and began humming “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” as he started to type. I was time to kick some Hunney bun.

* * *

 “You think so? Really,” Alex asked.

Nic rubbed his sweaty palms against his jeans. Confrontation was the absolute _worst_.  And confronting your best friend? Double worst. Worstest. “A little bit. I mean, I dunno, it’s just some stuff that felt kinda sensationalized.” Alex looked like he’s slapped her across the face. His stomach sank, but he pressed on. “Maybe if you could just go back and revisit the last couple of interviews? Take another look?”

Alex frowned, but she was Alex and he was Nic, so she said, “…Okay? Are you thinking I should look at anything specific?”  
He let out a breath of relief. “Nothing specific jumps out, it was just kind of a directional general sense that things were feeling a bit more,” he waved his hands, “sensationalized.”

Alex sighed. “You really think that’s the case?”

He shrugged and fiddled with his watch, unable to meet her eyes. “Just, if you could listen to the last few interviews before you cut them into the final show, that’s—that’s all I ask.”

She frowned and he could see her weighing what he’d said. He looked at the awful dark circles under her eyes and the slump of her shoulders. He wondered how she was even able to drive herself around. The next time she went out into the field, he was going with her. “Okay.”

Nic barked a relieved laugh. “Okay. Okay. Great. Great. Uh.” He flipped off the microphone. “Okay, so, let’s talk recording. Promo spots. We have a new sponsor, and a new Audible thing, and then I was thinking we should do something cool for the blooper reel.”

“Blooper reel?” Alex smiled. “Who does blooper reels?”  
  
“It’s the internet. A brave new medium! We can do whatever we want.” He grinned at her and handed her the ad copy. As she read through it he fidgeted with the last piece, flicking the edges of the stapled pages back and forth under his thumb. This was the right thing to do. She just needed to hear how freaky it sounded when she read it aloud. She’d get it. Alex would totally get it.

“This looks great,” Alex said, looking up. “What about the other thing? The… blooper reel?” She giggled.

He gulped and handed it over. “I was thinking we could do this. It’s short, a couple of seconds.”

“This looks like part of the script for 02x01, except… oh my god.” Her head shot up. “Nicodemus Jabidah  Silver what the hell is this?”

He held up his hands, “It’s a… joke?”

“It’s weird. Did you write this?” She looked hurt.  
  
He shook his head so hard his hair levitated. “No, no, no, no, no! No, no way. It’s, uh, fanfiction? We have... fans? And they write it. About, well, us. Well, not _us_ us, like you and me together.” He tried to laugh and he heard it tip over into shrill. He fought to pull it back into his throat and coughed. “Mostly about you. And, uh, Strand. Cause they think you’re a thing. Which is hilarious because YOU TOTALLY AREN’T OH MY GOD RIGHT?” Another shrill giggle escaped and he slapped his hand over his mouth. This was the worst worstest in the history of worst things.

Alex looked down, past the paper in her sagging hand to the floor. Nic stooped a little and shrugged the hair out of his eyes. “Hey, right?”

She gave him a small smile. “Yeah.” Alex paused for a long moment and her gaze turned inward. Nic felt his heart clench. Then she looked at him again, a little sad but the same Alex who had been by his side forever. “Right.”

“Cool.” Nic straightened. “Coolio. Cool. So, I figured this could be, like, a shout out. To the fans. Just a little one. And we have some other stuff we could cut together. For a blooper reel.” He took her by the shoulders and looked at her solemnly. “Even _Serial_ doesn’t have a blooper reel.”

She cracked and they both collapsed against each other laughing. Maybe his was a little too wild and hers was a little too forced, but it was Nic and Alex against the universe again, like it was meant to be. “Oh my god,” Nic gasped, wiping tears from his eyes. “Oh my god. And you should totally read this thing at some point.”  
  
Alex lifted an eyebrow. “The thing that goes,” her voice dropped, “…I felt the warmth of Strand’s hand on my shoulder. A shiver went up my spine. I bit my lip, unconsc—“ she cracked up again.

“Absolutely! We didn’t even get to the part with the _Rocky Horror_ homage. This thing is so bad it’s awesome.”

She struggled to compose herself. “Well, I do love any excuse to throw rice at a movie screen.” They burst out laughing again.

Paul knocked on the door and stuck his head in, smiling. “Everything okay in here? I don’t remember paying you guys to have fun at work.” His grin widened and he squeezed in through the door.

Nic fanned his face and tried to get his breath back. “We’re awesome. Hey, shut the door and have a seat. We’re about to go full blooper reel.”

Alex smiled and tapped the papers against the desk before batting her eyelashes at Paul. “And some ads, boss. Don’t worry.”

Paul rolled his eyes and snagged a spare seat far enough from the mic that Nic wouldn’t have to edit out his loud breathing. Again. “I didn’t recc Murakami this week. So you should be fine with the Audible plug.”

Alex snorted. “Everyone’s a critic.” She flipped on the mic, grabbed her headphones, and squared her shoulders. Taking a deep breath she said, “Okay, let’s do this. Blooper reel take 1.”

Nic counted out a five second beat and then shot her the finger guns. After firming her lips in an attempt at composure, Alex was off and running. “Ruby caught me. A few minutes after I’d opened the door to Strand’s office. It was… intense. Strand had gone full conspiracy nut. Like, Carrie Matheson on _Homeland_ , thread and pins on the wall crazy. There were documents, post-it notes, fragments and bits of pages taped to magazine articles, maps. There were a few old computers with different types of disk and tape drives. It was clear: Stand had stepped off into the deep end.  Way off. After seeing the state of his office, I was really worried. I was really worried. I was about to demand that Ruby put me in touch with Strand immediately when…” she twitched and Nic bit his lip to keep from laughing. “I felt the warmth of Strand’s hand on my shoulder. A shiver went up my spine.” She took a breath. “I bit my lip, unconsciously. I felt his hand on my shoulder—“

All three of them burst out laughing. Paul doubled over and a few huffing snorts came from somewhere around his knees. Nic poked her. “You gotta stay—“

“Come on guys,” Alex admonished them. Paul mumbled something from near the floor.

“We can’t, we can’t break,” Nic gasped.

Paul straightened, waving his hands, “Okay, kay, kay, kay, kay, kay.” He shoved his hands over his mouth to try and hold in the laughter

“And a shiver—do it, keep going!” Nic grinned at her and she grinned back.

“You two will never be able to get through it!” They all broke into gales of laughter again. Alex held her sides and doubled over. Nic smiled down at her and rubbed her back.

Confrontation was still the worst. But this was the best day Nic had had in a while.

* * *

Nic shook his head and minimized the window on the audio file they’d received from Wendy Hochman. He began to hum “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” as he absently clicked his mouse. Everyone kept saying it sounded like a cat, but Nic had grown up with cats. They made a lot of strange sounds, like that weird noise his favorite grey tabby, Bambi, made every time he saw a bird. But absolutely nothing like this. He shivered. Sometimes he totally got why Alex didn’t sleep much anymore. Once they wrapped production he was going to drag her on another adventure. Somewhere with sunshine and beaches and little umbrella drinks.

Another window popped up and he absently tried to close it as he searched for the _Tanis_ file he was going to work on next. “Hey asshole,” MK snarled.

Nic jumped in his seat and clicked the Skype window so that her face filled his screen. “Uh, hey MK. Sorry. I was distracted.” He frowned. “Also, I wasn’t expecting you to call tonight. What’s up? Everything okay?” He looked around his dark office. It was pushing midnight again, and this was starting to become a bad habit.

“You little shit.” The contempt in her voice was so thick he could have spread it over toast. He blinked.

“Uh… I’m sorry? For whatever I did?”

“Oh you will be.” MK leaned forward. “Don’t fuck with the fangirls, man.”

Nic held up his hands. “Woah, woah, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She snorted. “That little clip you had Alex record yesterday? For your,” she made finger quotes, “blooper reel?”

Nic stared at her, mind racing. “How do you… even know about that?”

“All knowing, all seeing internet goddess over here. You think I haven’t been keeping tabs on you since before you decided to go off and get roofied by the Cult of Tanis?” She leaned back in her giant leather chair and crossed her arms. “Are you high right now?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

MK snorted again. “You totally pulled that line from a StreaganTrash666 fic over on A03.”

“I… don’t know what half of those words mean. I’m pretty sure I didn’t.”

“You didn’t even clear your search history, you doof.”

Busted. “Oh.” Nic’s fingers curled reflexively toward his mouse, but as his mother would say that particular horse was long gone and there was no amount of barn door closing that would bring it back.

“Yeah, ‘oh’. And don’t you dare think you can post it. At least, like, not as a part of the _Black Tapes_ canon or whatever. _I’m_ a fangirl, for fuck’s sake. I know of what I speak.” MK picked up one of the stress balls she kept scattered around her monitor and started squeezing. Nic squinted. It looked like tonight’s ball of choice was the cluster of grapes. “What were you even thinking?”

Nic sighed and spun in his chair. “Strand showed up.” MK’s eyebrow’s rose above her giant sunglasses. “At the studio. Here. He stole all the interns. And Alex has been acting… weird.”

MK chucked the grapes at her webcam. “What are you, Alex’s mom?”

He picked up a pen from his own desk and started clicking it absently. “What? No. Look, Alex gets weird with Strand. He’s like cigarettes.” MK opened her mouth and he waved the pen. “Long story. But look. She’s, like, going to compromise herself as a journalist because she’s got a weird thing for older men in suits—“

“TMI, dude, TMI. And you are such a mom. But hell, if you thought the Cult of Tanis had it out for you? You don’t _know_ wrath, man. I’ve lived through the shipper wars. I’ve seen stuff. The words ‘Harry’ or ‘Draco’ and ‘leather pants’ in the same sentence make me reach for a Xanax.” She picked up another stress ball shaped like a gold star. “You’re basically God’s perfect idiot. Don’t fuck with the fangirls.”  
  
“I feel like you’re quoting something there.”

“Duh.”

From somewhere near Nic’s left hand, a growling moan split the air. Nic jumped up from his chair and looked wildly around his office. Guttural chanting filled the small room.

“What the shit is that,” snapped MK.

“I… I think that as from the baby monitor?” Nic leaned over his computer and maximized the Hochman audio file. Holy crap… how long was this thing?

MK leaned forward again. “Baby monitor? Did you knock up that chick from _Mother_ or something? Man, you are full of poor life choices today.” She absently swiveled her chair back and forth in small, smooth rolls.

“No… no, it’s a recording from a baby monitor from a _Black Tapes_ case Alex is working on. The time stamp says that the file is only a couple of minutes long, but this thing… it’s been playing way longer than that. There’s some more stuff on here.” A lot more stuff. A couple hours more, if he wasn’t mistaken.

“Move over, pretty boy.” Suddenly the cursor on his screen jumped and a horde of extra applications he was pretty sure PNWS didn’t have a license for invaded his screen.

“What are you _doing_?”

“A bunch of jagoffs have been hacking baby monitors lately.”  
  
“What?” Nic gaped at her. “That’s—that’s terrible!”

“Duh. Like I said: jagoffs. So I want to see which one of them put this in there. They’ve been scaring kids.” MK frowned and began typing furiously on her end.  
  
“Very not cool.”

MK went silent as she worked, and Nic sat back down and picked up his pen. Maybe it really was a cat. Like, a tortured cat that some black hat, he smiled at the term he’d picked up from his favorite resident “information specialist”, was using as a prank. He hoped it was a prank.

“It’s no prank.”

It was creepy how well MK could do that. Read his thoughts. Alex used to be the only one who could—“Wait, it’s not?”

“No,” MK said, voice low and grim. “Whatever is going on here, it didn’t come from somewhere else. This whole thing happened in that kid’s bedroom.”

“There you are, little one,” whispered a woman from Nic’s speakers. He shivered. “Oh, you like him, don’t you?” She sounded like long, broken nails scraped down a chalkboard. The hair on Nic’s arms stood straight up.

“Oh shit,” said MK.

“Shhh,” said the mystery woman. “Don’ let mommy hear you. You are going to love your new life, my boy.”  
  
“Oh shit,” said Nic.

* * *

After the blood. After the dead body hanging from the ceiling fan. After the police reports and the grilling and the having to dance around a B&E charge while Alex stared dead-eyed at the wall and spoke only in a monotone. After the cops drove them back to the station. After Alex dropped Nic off at his car and disappeared into the night.

After. After. After.

Nic finally stumbled through his own front door, catching himself on the knob before he crashed to his knees. The adrenaline he’d been running on had burned off while he was busy locking his car and sprinting for the bright safety of his apartment complex, and now he felt like someone had hollowed out his chest with a snow shovel. All that was left was a cold, throbbing, aching numbness.

He closed the door and leaned against it for a moment before throwing all the locks and shoving a chair in front of it. If anyone came to kill him tonight, at least he’d have a little bit of warning.

Unless they were already there.

He forced his feet to move as he threw on all of his lights, opened every closet door, and threw back his shower curtain. He felt like he was moving through peanut butter, but he also knew he wouldn’t be able to shut his eyes until he was certain nobody was lying under his bed with a machete waiting for him to drift off to sleep.

Nic shuddered. The cops had used words like “blood spatter” and “arterial spray” and other things he’d only ever heard when his mom turned on _Law & Order_ reruns. He hoped he’d never again have to hear them said while standing in little baggies because his shoes had soaked up so much blood they were now considered part of the crime scene.

After he had checked every nook and cranny, after every light blazed and chased the darkness into the corners, after he kicked off the weird sandals the cops had given him to shuffle home in, he flopped down on his couch.

His pocket chimed faintly.

He stared at the couch.

His pocket chimed again.

Sighing, he pulled out his phone. It might be Alex. God knew he’d be joining her in the insomnia tonight. And for the rest of their natural lives.

 _How you doing, perfect idiot?_ Read the first message. _You break free from the cops yet?_

Nic hesitated. Then he typed, _Worst. Night. Ever._ He pushed send. After a moment he let out a single sob and hunched over his phone, typing at rapid speed. _told A not to open the door. & she did. &  I followed her. & then there was all this blood. EVERYWHERE. & the housekeeper was dead. On the fan. & it was bad MK. Really bad._

MK was silent for a moment. Then his phone buzzed in his hand. _i got ur back 2nite Nic. all cameras in the neighborhood on u. i m out front. get some sleep._

Nic breathed long and deep felt some of the tension drain down into his feet. It was still there. It would  always be there. But if he swung his feet up onto the couch and propped them up on a pillow? He could maybe sleep like that.

 _Thx. Nite MK_ , he texted. And then he closed his eyes and tried not to see the horror splashed across the inside of his eyelids.

* * *

Time and podcasts waited for no man. He and Alex were back in Studio A the next morning, avoiding Strand’s worried looks and focused on pounding out the new ending to _The Black Tapes_ 02x03. Alex’s voice kept cracking, going between slow monotone and rapid fire. It took them two hours to get two minutes of tape, but finally Nic had something he could cut together and post.

Strand, Nic learned, was a hoverer. He hovered. He hovered at the door to the studio. He hovered when he and Alex finally broke and Nic made Alex a cup of tea with honey and lemon in the break room. And Alex, for all of Nic’s misgivings about the whole mess, seemed marginally more herself when he was around. A bit more pulled together. A smidge less blurred around the edges.

Nic still didn’t have to like it, though.

Five days after he posted 02x03, an email from MK pinged his inbox.

_Thought you could use some cheering up. Not from me. So: beware the wrath of the fangirls. Totally a thing. But if you do it right, you could get a whole bunch of fangirl love. Which I think you and Alex need right now. Prepare for the internet to fall on your head in 3…2…1_

_\--MK_

Attached was an email from his own account he had no memory of sending addressed to [streagantrash666@gmail.com](mailto:streagantrash666@gmail.com). And attached to the attachment was an audio file marked “Alex Narration.mp3”. When he clicked it, the familiar intro music made him blink and then the best moment of the best day he’d had in a year jingled out of his speakers. He smiled.

The day after that, all the PNWS social media accounts were flooded.

Three days after that, the first pair of forest green shirts reading “smol moose reporter twin” showed up at the station addressed to him and Alex. More shirts and postcards and drawings and even a tiny intricate sculpture soon followed. But the first shirt and the purple one with the cartoon of a moose with headphones dangling from its antlers while it sipped from a PNWS mug quickly became his favorites.

Life could be pretty terrible, sometimes. But sometimes it helped to have people around who had your back, hovered a lot, and made really weird art.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Would you like to read the so bad it’s awesome fic that made Nic and Alex lose their shit? StreaganTrash666 is a shy (*cough*nonexistent*cough*) author without an AO3 account. So for the next month, email streagantrash666@gmail.com to redeem your exclusive copy! After Easter I’ll post it on my Tumblr for you all to enjoy.  
> 2) Written in about five hours, sans beta. All mistakes belong to me and my haste.  
> 3) Clearly large chunks of this are not mine. Credit where it’s due to the PNWS staff and the folks who run the The Black Tapes Podcast Transcripts site.  
> 4) This was supposed to be fluff, goddamnit. And crack. I don’t know what happened.  
> 5) Does adding Paul make this RPF? As a rule, I do not write RPF. But since he’s sort of made himself a character in the PNWS universe via his routine insistence in interviews that all of this is real, I am uncertain. Meta! *jazzhands*


End file.
